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Aerodynamics of Road Vehicles Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25 : 485-537 Copyright © 1993 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved AERODYNAMICS OF ROAD VEHICLES Wolf-Heinrich Hucho Ostring 48, D-6231, Schwalbach (Ts), Germany Gino Sovran General Motors Research and Environmental Staff, Warren, Michigan 48090-9055 KEYWORDS: aerodynamicdesign, aerodynamictesting, aerodynamicforces, flowfields 1. INTRODUCTION In fluid mechanical terms, road vehicles are bluff bodies in very close proximity to the ground. Their detailed geometry is extremely complex. Internal and recessed cavities which communicatefreely with the external flow (i.e. engine compartmentand wheel wells, respectively) and rotating by CAPES on 03/06/09. For personal use only. wheels add to their geometrical and fluid mechanical complexity. The flow over a vehicle is fully three-dimensional. Boundarylayers are turbulent. Flow separation is commonand may be followed by reattachment. Large turbulent wakes are formed at the rear and in manycases contain longi- tudinal trailing vortices. As is typical for bluff bodies, drag (which is a key issue for most road Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25:485-537. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org vehicles--but far from the only one) is mainly pressure drag. This is in contrast to aircraft and ships, which suffer primarily from friction drag. The avoidanceof separation or, if this is not possible, its control are among the main objectives of vehicle aerodynamics. With regard to their geometry, road vehicles comprise a large variety of configurations (Figure 1). Passenger cars, vans, and buses are closed, single bodies. Trucks and race cars can be of more than one body. Motorcycles and some race cars have open driver compartments. With the race car being the only exception, the shape of a road vehicle is not primarily 485 0066-4189/93/0115-0485502.00 Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline 486 HUCHO & SOVRAN Figure 1 With respect to geometry, road v+hicles comprise a wide variety of shapes. Race cars and, even moreso, motorcycles have to be studied with the driver in place. by CAPES on 03/06/09. For personal use only. determined by the need to generate specific aerodynamic effects--as, for instance, an airplane is designed to producelift. To the contrary, a road vehicle’s shape is primarily determined by functional, economic and, last but not least, aesthetic arguments. The aerodynamiccharacteristics are not usually,generated intentionally; they Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25:485-537. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org are the consequences of, but not the reason for, the shape. These "other than aerodynamic"considerations place severe constraints on vehicle aero- dynamicists. For example, there are good reasons for the length of a vehicle being a given. Length for a passenger car is a measureof its size, and thus its class. To place a car in a specific market niche meansrecognizing length as an invariant in design. Furthermore, mass and cost are proportional to length. In the same sense all the other main dimensions of a vehicle, such as width and height (which define frontal area), are frozen very early the design process. Even the details of a car’s proportions are prescribed Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline AERODYNAMICS OF ROAD VEHICLES 487 to close limits for reasons of packaging and aesthetics (Figure 2). course, some maneuvering room must be left to the aerodynamicists (the hatched regions). Otherwise, they would do no more than just measure the aerodynamiccharacteristics of configurations designed by others. Dependingon the specific purpose of each type of vehicle, the objectives of aerodynamics differ widely. While low drag is desirable for all road vehicles, other aerodynamicproperties are also significant. Negativelift is decisive for the cornering capability of race cars, but is of no importance for trucks. Cars and, even more so, vans are sensitive to cross wind, but heavy trucks are not. Windnoise should be low for cars and buses, but is of no significance for race cars. While the process of weighing the relative importance of a set of needs from various disciplines is generally comparableto that in other branches of applied fluid mechanics, the situation in vehicle aerodynamicsis unique in that an additional category of arguments has to be taken into account: art, fashion, and taste. In contrast to technical and economicfactors, these additional arguments are subjective in nature and cannot be quantified. Exterior design (the term "styling" that was formerly used is today usually avoided) has to be recognized as extremely important. "Design is what sells" rules the car market worldwide. While design gives technical requirements a form that is in accord with fashion, the fundamental nature by CAPES on 03/06/09. For personal use only. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25:485-537. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org it Figure 2 Right from the beginning of the developmentof a newvehicle, its main dimensions and detailed proportions are frozen. The limited maneuvering room for aerodynamics is identified by the hatched lines. Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline 488 HUCHO & SOVRAN of fashion is change. Consequently, although vehicle aerodynamics is getting better and better, it is not progressing toward a single ultimate shape as in the case, for instance, of subsonic transport aircraft. To the contrary, it must come to terms with new shapes again and again. There is no question, however, that aerodynamicsdoesinfluence design. The high trunk typical of notchbackcars with low drag is the most striking example. Despite the fact that it tends to look "bulky," it had to be accepted by designers because of its favorable effect on drag--and the extra luggage space it provides. Today’s cars are streamlined more than ever, and an "aero-look" has becomea styling feature of its own. 2. HISTORY Whenthe carriage horse was replaced by a thermal engine more than 100 years ago, nobody thought about aerodynamics. The objective of the body shell of the nowhorseless carriage was, as before, to shelter the driver and passengers from wind, rain, and mud. The idea of applying aerodynamics to road vehicles came up much later, after flight technology had made considerable progress. For both airships and aircraft, streamlined shapes were developed which lowered drag significantly, thus permitting higher cruising speeds with any given (limited) engine power. The early attempts (Figure 3) to streamline cars were made according to aeronautical practice and by adapting shapes from naval architecture. These failed for two reasons. First, the benefits of aerodynamics were simply not needed. Bad roads and low engine power only permitted moder- ate driving speeds. Second, the approach of directly transplanting (with almost no change) shapes which had been developed for aeronautical and by CAPES on 03/06/09. For personal use only. marine purposes was not appropriate. These streamlined shapes could be accommodated only if some important details of car design were subordinated, e.g. engine location, or the layout of the passenger compartment. The long road from those days to today’s acceptance of aerodynamics Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25:485-537. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org in the automobile industry has been described in great detail (Kieselbach 1982a,b, 1983; Hucho1987b). From this history, only those events which were decisive will be highlighted here. Acknowledgingthe danger of being superficial, only five will be identified. 1. The recognition that the pattern of flow around half a body of revo- lution is changed significantly whenthat half body is brought close to the ground (Klemperer 1922, Figure 4). 2. The truncation of a body’s rear end (KoenigoFachsenfeld et al 1936, Kammet al 1934, Figure 4). Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline AERODYNAMICS OF ROAD VEHICLES 489 RICOTrl 1913 KLEMPERER JARAY KAMM by CAPES on 03/06/09. For personal use only. Figure 3 (left) The early attempts to apply aerodynamics to road vehicles consisted of the direct transfer of shapes originating from aeronautical and marine practice. The resulting shapes differed widely from those of contemporary cars and were rejected by the buying public. This unsuitable transfer procedure was very embarrassing for later attempts to introduce aerodynamicsinto vehicles. Annu. Rev. Fluid Mech. 1993.25:485-537. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org Figure4 (right) Klemperer(1922) recognized that the flow over a body of revolution, which is axisymmetric in free flight, changed drastically and lost symmetry when the body came close to the ground. By modifying its shape, however, he was able to reduce the related drag increase. Despite their extreme length, flow separates from the rear of streamlined ears. By truncating the rear shortly upstream of the location where separation would take place, shapes of acceptable length were generated with no drag penalty. This idea was first proposed by Koenig-Fachsenfeld for buses, and was transferred to cars by Kamm. Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org/aronline 490 HUCHO& SOVRAN 3 The introduction of "detail-optimization" into vehicle development (Figure 5, Huchoet al 1976). 4. The deciphering of the detailed flow patterns at car rear ends (Section 4.1). 5. The application of "add-ons" like underbody air dams, fairings, and wings to passenger ears, trucks, and race ears. With these five steps, aerodynamics has been adapted to road vehicles, rather than road-vehicle configurations being determined by the demands of aerodynamics. The shape of cars changed in an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary manner over the years (Figure 6), and at first for reasons other than aerodynamic ones. Taste, perhaps influenced by the fascinating shapes of aircraft, called for smooth bodies with integrated headlamps and fcndcrs (the "pontoon body"), and production technology made them possible. Better flow over the car and thus lower drag was only a spinoff. But, finally, the two oil crises of the 1970s generated great pressure for improving fuel economydrastically, and provided a break- ct~ CDO by CAPES on 03/06/09.
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